Fstoppers Final Day In Iceland Ep. 4 Photographing The World BTS

It is once again time for us to continue our behind the scenes series on the creation of our landscape photography tutorial: Photographing the World. Episode 4 of this series is our final day in Iceland before we move on to New Zealand in next weeks episode. 

For our final 2 lessons in Iceland Elia Locardi took us to 2 incredible waterfalls. The day started out with a bit of excitment as we got our van stuck in the mud on our way to our first stop, Skogafoss. We realized that the night before, we had left our "good" tripod by the side of the road leaving us with the worst tripod we've ever used. To teach film this lesson we decided to use a Manfrotto Magic Arm as a stabilizer for our "B" camera. It wasn't pretty but it ended up working out. 

We then moved on to Seljalandsfoss. This has become one of the most famous waterfalls in all of Iceland because you can actually walk behind the falls. During the summer the mist might feel refreshing but in the middle of winter, it instantly froze on the ground, our clothing, and our gear. We had trouble keeping the lenses dry even for a few seconds and by the time we had finished our cameras had a few millimeters of frozen ice encapsulating them. Surprisingly, even our Nikon D750s (which aren't supposed to be super weather resistant) survived the insane weather throughout our entire project. 

 

After completing all of our lessons in Iceland we were able to relax in one of the many natural hot springs. It was a perfect ending to an amazing trip. 

 

We ended up traveling to 6 different countries for this project but I have to say that Iceland was my favorite country by far. In fact, I think it's the most memorable place I've ever visited in my life. It was certainly cold during the winter but the environment was so incredible that it didn't ruin my experience. I'm so excited to go back in the summer and see this amazing country in a completely different season. 

In case you've missed the other episodes you can easily find them below. 

You can watch episode 1 here

You can watch episode 2 here

You can watch episode 3 here

You can watch episode 4 here

You can watch episode 5 here

You can watch episode 6 here

You can watch episode 7 here

You can watch episode 8 here

You can find the finished tutorial in the Fstoppers Store.

Lee Morris's picture

Lee Morris is a professional photographer based in Charleston SC, and is the co-owner of Fstoppers.com

Log in or register to post comments
19 Comments

seriously epic!

So what is Ziggy's contact info?

If i go to Iceland im booking with Ziggy!! #teamziggy

Only Siggy could talk shit about photographers and make us love him even more.

These bts series are so much fun. Thank god there's more to come. Cheers guys!

Lee, do you remember the name of the waterfall Patrick is shooting at the 14:43 mark? I am heading to Iceland in February and want to include it in my travel.

Thats Kirkjufell

ha, wow I had a moment I guess. Didn't recognize it without the mountain next to it. Thanks Lee.

Awesome work guys, keep 'em coming!!

So there is more to come in this series? Iceland and New Zealand are just the opening acts?

That's correct. We have 8 episodes completed for this "season". We still have 9 more episodes to edit.

Good stuff...I can relate to the van issues. We rented one in Italy on a ski film shoot and pretty much destroyed it...we put gas in the diesel engine, blew a flat, ripped off the bumper and it kinda goes on from there

This was a great BTS guys, I really enjoyed watching it and made me realize I miss so much traveling.

You guys made a massive outdoor test on several equipment! Would be really nice and useful to make a detailed post of this later on, what do you think?

Oh no! I bought the Manfrotte 190 tripod in 2012 to replace my Slik U212 tripod. Oh well, I can't afford the Gitzo tripods that you pros can afford.

I'm so so sorry for you

Well, so far, I haven't had any problems with it.

Wow.. then i googled images of ice on the black sand beach and they look amazing.. maybe the most stunning shots there were taken by "most hated by Ziggy photographers"